- As the most contagious COVID variants spread across the United States, Pfizer is exploring the usefulness of a third dose of booster.
- Pfizer expects a third dose of vaccine “can increase the antibody response by 10 to 20 times.”
- Pfizer and Moderna plan to boost vaccine production and ship 140 million doses to the U.S. over the next 4.5 weeks.
Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine is 95% effective in preventing COVID infection, a staggering figure that even surprised the company’s team of researchers. However, with more contagious variants from the UK and South Africa already spreading to the US, Pfizer is currently investigating what kind of impact a third dose of boost would have on the immune system’s response to COVID. Currently, the Pfizer vaccine requires the administration of two separate doses at three weeks.
According to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, researchers expect a third booster shot to “increase the antibody response by 10 to 20 times.”
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NBC News reports:
The new study will monitor the safety and efficacy of a third dose in two age groups: those aged 18 to 55 years and those aged 65 to 85 years. Participants came from a group of people who were among the first to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine: people who volunteered at Pfizer’s initial phase 1/2 clinical trial, which began in May.
“We want to not only protect during this immediate pandemic, but prepare for what we like to call the nasty variant of the future if it comes up,” Pfizer senior vice president William Gruber said recently.
It should also be noted that Pfizer has held talks with regulators on the development of a tailor-made vaccine to combat new variants of COVID-19 and, in particular, the South African strain. The hope is that modified mRNA vaccines will be able to achieve rapid regulatory approval, similar to how there are new influenza vaccines based on new strains each year.
The company said the following in a press release this week:
Separately, to be prepared for possible future strain changes, Pfizer and BioNTech are holding ongoing discussions with regulatory authorities, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency, on a clinical study. allowing registration of a variant-specific vaccine with a modified mRNA sequence.
This study would use a new construction of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine based on the B.1.351 lineage, first identified in South Africa. This could force companies to update the current vaccine quickly if the need arises to protect against COVID-19 from circulating strains. In line with the updated guidance issued by the FDA on the emergency use of vaccines to prevent COVID-19, which provides recommendations for evaluating a modified vaccine to address variants, companies hope to continue validating future mRNA vaccines modified with a regulatory route similar to that currently in place for influenza vaccines.
Meanwhile, there is a strong possibility that the single-dose COVID-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson will arrive early next month. The J&J vaccine was shown to be 85% effective in preventing severe COVID attacks and 66% effective when moderate cases are considered.
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A lifelong Mac enthusiast and Apple enthusiast, Yoni Heisler has been writing about Apple and the tech industry in general for over 6 years. His writings have appeared in Edible Apple, Network World, MacLife, Macworld UK and, more recently, in TUAW. When not writing and analyzing recent events with Apple, Yoni enjoys taking Improv programs in Chicago, playing football, and cultivating new addictions to TV shows, the most recent examples being The Walking Dead and Broad City.